In spring 2007, I attended a guided mountaineering tour by Kari Kobler/Switzerland to Mt. Everest from the Chinese Tibet side, which made me think more and more critical about the relationship of reliability, quality, safety, and costs of tour guides and the mountaineering companies on Mt. Everest.

My personal conclusion is that in case I came back to Everest I would NOT choose Kobler & Partner mountaineering company again! The reasons are as follows:

- When members of the expedition became sick in base camp Kari Kobler would not stay with us for a few days for recovery but would recklessly push up to ABC and even demand every member to go to higher altitude. Time was not an issue at this early phase of the expedition.

- Acclimatizing slower than other group members Kari Kobler would request me going up to higher altitude instead of going down for a few days. In my opinion this was a major cause for problems which could have put myself into high risk.

- Pushing himself for his third personal attempt to reach the summit and pushing another Swiss lady to her final summit attempt, he would use all of the available summit sherpas. Expecting his further clients getting ready for summit a week later or so this appeared unacceptable, disappointing, reckless and egocentric to me: Kari Kobler accepting the risk that his clients would have to deal with "burned" sherpas - sherpas required to summit a second time while being tired. Kari Kobler risking the safety of his clients was irresponsible, might even have caused the death of clients, and significantly limited the chances to reach the summit. As a matter of fact I even have paid an extra fee for a summit sherpa. However, all experienced sherpas have been used by Kari Kobler himself!